Has Don Bosco football gotten too big?

PRATTVILLE, Ala. — The spectacle has become routine for the Don Bosco Prep football team.

Thousands of fans pack the bleachers. ESPN cameras capture the action for a national television audience. College scouts everywhere are enamored with the highly skilled, physically chiseled, fundamentally honed talent on the field.

Those are the basics that have transformed an OK high school football program into a national phenomenon. The scene will play itself out again Friday night against Alabama powerhouse Prattville High School 1,049 miles from Ramsey.

After a decade under the direction of Bergen County coaching legend Greg Toal, the Ironmen now stand at the top the heap among New Jersey varsity gridiron teams.

But that remarkable success has come with questions about whether Don Bosco’s program is good for the rest of the schools in North Jersey.

Don Bosco sees itself as a championship trailblazer. But others see it as the greatest example of what’s wrong nowadays with high school sports.

As a private, parochial school, Don Bosco draws student athletes from everywhere, while their public-school brethren are limited by the geography of their respective districts.

Don Bosco’s roster this season includes players from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Six of its defensive starters have already accepted Division I scholarships from colleges such as Boston College, Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt.

On Sept. 12, before a home crowd in excess of 8,600, the Ironmen beat De La Salle of California — the most storied high school football program in the country — by a convincing score of 30-6.

“We hear criticism about what we are all the time, but we try not to let it bother us,” said Don Bosco athletic director Nunzio Campanile, who also serves as offensive coordinator of the football team. “We believe the priority should be finding ways to challenge your student athletes to be the best they can be, and that’s what this is about for us. Personally I think more schools — the schools that can and those that want to — they should follow the lead and look for better competition. We’d all benefit from that.”

Others believe North Jersey would be better served by not having Don Bosco competing against teams from around here at all.

“It’s not disrespect for what they’ve done, because we respect what Greg and those guys have done as coaches, and I’d like to think they respect us,” said Wayne Hills coach Chris Olsen, whose team has won 54 consecutive games, tied for the second-longest winning streak in New Jersey history. “But I believe teams with players from three states should be playing other teams with players from three states, and that’s not us.”

He paused before adding with a laugh: “That’s not a lot of us.”

That sentiment is what helped create the Don Bosco phenomenon in the first place. Four years ago, public-school athletic directors within the now-defunct Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League pushed for legislation that would no longer require games between public and non-public programs.

The compromise — not complete separation within that league, but limited competition between the two sides, especially in football — forced Don Bosco to find three non-conference games for the 2006 season. The Ironmen opened at home on national television against Philadelphia’s St. Joseph’s Prep before traveling to Ohio, where they ended up defeating Centerville of Ohio at the University of Cincinnati.

Don Bosco traveled out of state twice last season as part of its non-conference schedule, trekking back to Ohio, where it lost to St. Xavier of Cincinnati, before making the cross-country trip to De La Salle. The Ironmen won a thriller on a field goal in the final seconds, becoming the first team to beat De La Salle on its home field since 1984.

Now, after the De La Salle victory two weeks ago, Don Bosco is in position to make a legitimate case at being ranked No. 1 in the country in several national polls, provided it can defeat a talented Prattville team on its home field.

The Ironmen are currently ranked as high as fourth nationally in USA Today’s Super 25.

With Toal as head coach, they have a record of 107-10.

“It’s still high school football; it’s just at a completely different level, a different world,” said Lodi coach Pat Tirico, who also serves as his school’s athletic director. “They’ve absolutely done a lot to put New Jersey football on the map, so that’s a great thing. But honestly Don Bosco is playing a different game right now than everybody else.”

The Rev. Louis Molinelli never considered himself “a sports person” before he returned to his alma mater in 2004 as president and director. Clearly, the interest in his school has increased due to his school’s success on the athletic fields, especially in football.

More than 1,000 eighth-graders inquired about Don Bosco at an open house at the Ramsey campus last year and the crowds were back again when the school opened its doors for prospective students and their families Sunday.

The enrollment of Grades 9-12 at the all-boys school is nearly 900.

“I haven’t taken that step back yet as far as asking myself, ‘Have we gotten too big?’Ÿ” said Molinelli, who denied rumors that Don Bosco was considering adding dorms and reverting to its status in the 1970s as a boarding school. “I am wondering, after this, going to Prattville, where do we go from here?

“My biggest concern is when the program begins to affect the spiritual development and the academic development of our kids,” he said. “Then it’s too big — but I don’t see that yet.”

Toal, who took the reins in 1999 when he chose Don Bosco over Clifton, is clear in his feelings about the value of the program he’s created.

“We’re De La Salle East and they’re Don Bosco West,” Toal said after his team’s triumph over De La Salle. “This was another great victory for Jersey high school football.”

The Ironmen are well aware that not everybody views it that way.

“We wish them well, and we’ll root for them in Alabama,” said Passaic athletic director Greg Komeshok, whose team gets to play Don Bosco on Oct. 3. “But having to play Don Bosco ourselves is a miscarriage of justice. They’ve just gotten too big, and as Don Bosco’s reputation continues to grow, it’s going to get even harder to compete in the future.”

PRATTVILLE, Ala. — The spectacle has become routine for the Don Bosco Prep football team.

Thousands of fans pack the bleachers. ESPN cameras capture the action for a national television audience. College scouts everywhere are enamored with the highly skilled, physically chiseled, fundamentally honed talent on the field.

Those are the basics that have transformed an OK high school football program into a national phenomenon. The scene will play itself out again Friday night against Alabama powerhouse Prattville High School 1,049 miles from Ramsey.

After a decade under the direction of Bergen County coaching legend Greg Toal, the Ironmen now stand at the top the heap among New Jersey varsity gridiron teams.

But that remarkable success has come with questions about whether Don Bosco’s program is good for the rest of the schools in North Jersey.

Don Bosco sees itself as a championship trailblazer. But others see it as the greatest example of what’s wrong nowadays with high school sports.

As a private, parochial school, Don Bosco draws student athletes from everywhere, while their public-school brethren are limited by the geography of their respective districts.

Don Bosco’s roster this season includes players from New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Six of its defensive starters have already accepted Division I scholarships from colleges such as Boston College, Pittsburgh and Vanderbilt.

On Sept. 12, before a home crowd in excess of 8,600, the Ironmen beat De La Salle of California — the most storied high school football program in the country — by a convincing score of 30-6.

“We hear criticism about what we are all the time, but we try not to let it bother us,” said Don Bosco athletic director Nunzio Campanile, who also serves as offensive coordinator of the football team. “We believe the priority should be finding ways to challenge your student athletes to be the best they can be, and that’s what this is about for us. Personally I think more schools — the schools that can and those that want to — they should follow the lead and look for better competition. We’d all benefit from that.”

Others believe North Jersey would be better served by not having Don Bosco competing against teams from around here at all.

“It’s not disrespect for what they’ve done, because we respect what Greg and those guys have done as coaches, and I’d like to think they respect us,” said Wayne Hills coach Chris Olsen, whose team has won 54 consecutive games, tied for the second-longest winning streak in New Jersey history. “But I believe teams with players from three states should be playing other teams with players from three states, and that’s not us.”

He paused before adding with a laugh: “That’s not a lot of us.”

That sentiment is what helped create the Don Bosco phenomenon in the first place. Four years ago, public-school athletic directors within the now-defunct Northern New Jersey Interscholastic League pushed for legislation that would no longer require games between public and non-public programs.

The compromise — not complete separation within that league, but limited competition between the two sides, especially in football — forced Don Bosco to find three non-conference games for the 2006 season. The Ironmen opened at home on national television against Philadelphia’s St. Joseph’s Prep before traveling to Ohio, where they ended up defeating Centerville of Ohio at the University of Cincinnati.

Don Bosco traveled out of state twice last season as part of its non-conference schedule, trekking back to Ohio, where it lost to St. Xavier of Cincinnati, before making the cross-country trip to De La Salle. The Ironmen won a thriller on a field goal in the final seconds, becoming the first team to beat De La Salle on its home field since 1984.

Now, after the De La Salle victory two weeks ago, Don Bosco is in position to make a legitimate case at being ranked No. 1 in the country in several national polls, provided it can defeat a talented Prattville team on its home field.

The Ironmen are currently ranked as high as fourth nationally in USA Today’s Super 25.

With Toal as head coach, they have a record of 107-10.

“It’s still high school football; it’s just at a completely different level, a different world,” said Lodi coach Pat Tirico, who also serves as his school’s athletic director. “They’ve absolutely done a lot to put New Jersey football on the map, so that’s a great thing. But honestly Don Bosco is playing a different game right now than everybody else.”